Dr. Kristin Surak is Associate Professor of Political Sociology at the London School of Economics and the author of The Golden Passport: Global Mobility for Millionaires (Harvard University Press 2023).
She is a leading expert on elite mobility, international migration, nationalism, and Japanese politics, whose research has been translated into half-dozen languages.
ABOUT
Prof. Surak joined the LSE in 2020 as an Associate Professor in Political Sociology who specializes in the politics of global mobility. Her research on elite mobility, international migration, nationalism, and Japanese politics has been translated into half-dozen languages. She publishes in major academic journals and writes for popular outlets, including the London Review of Books, Washington Post, The Guardian, New Statesman, and Wall Street Journal. She also comments regularly for global sources, such as the BBC, Bloomberg TV, Huffington Post, Channel News Asia TV, and Sky TV News.
She has held several internationally recognized positions, including Richard B. Fischer Member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, Fung Global Fellow at Princeton University, Sainsbury Fellow at the Sainsbury Institute for Japanese Arts and Cultures, and Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute. She is a Lifetime Fellow of Clare Hall at the University of Cambridge and an Academic Peer of Hitotsubashi University, and has been a visiting professor at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies and at New York University in Abu Dhabi.
The American Academy of Political and Social Science has recognized her scholarship, which has been funded by the German Science Foundation (DFG), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Japan Foundation, Fulbright-Hays Foundation, and Leverhulme Foundation, among others.
The Golden Passport: Global Mobility for Millionaires
Published by Harvard University Press, September 19, 2023.
Forceful, original, and packed with empirical detail, this is a major contribution to our understanding of the current global order. Kristin Surak makes clear the wider social, economic, and geopolitical implications of a Faustian bargain in place between the super-rich and some poorer countries of the world. Her pathbreaking book deserves to reach a wide readership.
—ANTHONY GIDDENS, author of The Third Way
A tour de force, offering at once a history of ‘citizenship by investment,’ a business school case study in market-making, and a peek into the lives of the super-wealthy. Surak’s book is a sharp-eyed contribution and a major milestone.
—JOHN TORPEY, author of The Invention of the Passport
Recent News Coverage
Op-Eds and Essays (more)
The Wall Street Journal
London Review of Books
Tagesspiegel
Quoted in the News (more)
The Economist (Espresso)
The Golden Passport introduced in the article, “The Peculiar World of Golden Passports.” September 19, 2023.
The Guardian Newspaper
Quoted in the article, “Dominica May Have Sold Thousands More ‘Golden Passports’ Than It Disclosed, Analysis Suggests.” October 12, 2023.
Huffington Post
Quoted in the article, “The American elite are planning their escape—and it starts with paying for passports.” March 19, 2023.
Vox News
Quoted in the article, “The Ultimate Score for Rich People? Golden Passports.” June 25, 2023.
Radio Free Europe
Quoted in the article, “Za crnogorske ‘zlatne’ pasoše još se razmatra preko 400 prijava” [Over 400 Applications are Still Being Considered for Montenegrin ‘Golden Passports.’] November 10, 2023.
The Times of India
Op-ed dedicated to The Golden Passport, “Too Rich to Afford a Bad Passport: Why Citizenship by Investment is Picking Up Pace.” September 2, 2023.
Making Tea, Making Japan:
Cultural Nationalism in Practice
Published by Stanford University Press (2013)
Winner of the American Sociological Association’s Outstanding Book Award for Asia
This is the tea book for which we have been waiting. Surak introduces the embodied practice of making tea, but does much more. With methodological sophistication, she shows how this apparently simple activity came to define a unique “Japaneseness.” This study will be of great appeal not only to those interested in tea and Japan, but more widely in nationalisms and state myths.
—TIMON SCREECH, author of The Shogun’s Painted Culture
Surak’s book is a theoretical breakthrough, showing the changing functions and social bearers of a single ritual over a long and troubled historical record. Elegantly written and extraordinarily argued.
—JOHN A. HALL, author of The World of States